The De Santis Marriage

Lizzy winced, cheeks heating at this cool reminder of the other issue in all of this she was having to deal with—the fact that the man Bianca had run off with also happened to be her very own brother.

‘Matt isn’t poor.’ She felt compelled to defend Matthew’s middle class earnings. It was, after all, the only thing about him she felt she could defend right now.

‘In your estimation or mine?’

Oh, that was so very arrogant of him. Lizzy felt anger begin to rise even though she knew she didn’t have the right to let it. ‘Look—’ with a tense twist she turned to the door ‘—I think I had better leave you to—’

‘Running away like the other two?’ he mocked her.

‘No,’ she denied that. ‘I just think it’s better that I go before I lose my temper.’

‘So you have one?’

‘Yes.’ She swung back round only to find that he had come around the desk so quickly and silently she hadn’t heard him move. Now he was leaning against it with his arms folded across his chest, Bianca’s letter lying discarded on the desk behind him.

Surprise brought a soft gasp whispering from her throat. And a new kind of tension flared in the pit of her stomach at the way he was studying the little green top and white capris she’d pulled on so hurriedly this morning, and the wildly unruly state of her hair.

Last night she’d made a fool of herself with him. This morning she’d been awoken by hysterics and accusations from Bianca’s parents that still rang in her head. Now this— this deeply unsettling man she’d been sent to face because Bianca’s parents couldn’t bring themselves to do it—and he was looking her over as if he couldn’t believe she would dare to walk out of her room looking as she did.

Well, you try applying make-up when your fingers won’t stop shaking, she told him silently as she suffered his cool appraisal that was so spiked by the glint of contempt. You try wondering what clothes to wear for an audience with a jilted man when your nerves were shot to death at the very prospect.

‘During the week you have been here in my country I’ve watched you play the straight man to Bianca’s high-strung and volatile temperament,’ he said so suddenly it made Lizzy blink. ‘I’ve watched you soothe her, calm her and even humour her. But I do not recall seeing you threaten to lose your temper with her even when she took it upon herself to mock or embarrass you, so why do you feel the need to lose your temper with me?’

‘Y-you attacked my family.’

‘I attacked your brother,’ he amended. ‘You don’t believe I have the right?’

Of course he had the right. This time yesterday he had been one half of a glittering couple, his marriage to Bianca only a short week away. It was supposed to be the wedding of the year here in Italy, now it was about to become juicy fodder for every media outlet and it was her very own brother who’d turned it into that.

Lizzy moved jerkily, offering a small conciliatory flip of one hand despite feeling as though she were being whipped by his smooth cutting tone. ‘I give you the right to despise my brother,’ she acknowledged. ‘I will even give you the right to be angry with me because I’m the sister of the man who ran off with your bride. But I will not—’ and her chin came up, eyes sparking with challenge ‘—stand here and let you deride the fact that we are not rich like you.’

‘I did that?’

Lizzy pressed her lips together and nodded. He wasn’t the only one around her who’d had his pride battered today. She’d had to put up with some pretty mean observations from Bianca’s parents about her brother that had been difficult to swallow down.

‘Then I apologise.’

Lizzy didn’t believe him. Facing up to him like this, she didn’t see or hear so much as a hint of apology in his tone. But, ‘Thank you,’ she responded politely anyway. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I’ll leave you to—’

‘How did you get here?’

Once again she was about to turn away when he stopped her. ‘By water taxi across the lake from Bellagio,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘Then it seems to me that you’re stuck here until I arrange your return across the lake.’

‘Y-your man on the jetty said he would see to—’

‘It’s a case of priorities, Miss Hadley,’ he cut in. ‘My instructions take precedence around here, you see.’

He was pulling rank, Lizzy recognised, lips parting to say something then snapping shut again when it suddenly struck her that he was burning for a fight.

Did she take him on? The question lit up her brain while her common sense told her to just get the heck out of here because she wasn’t up to his weight. He lived in this fabulous villa on the banks of Lake Como, he owned a beautiful apartment in Milan, which was why she’d been so surprised to find he’d taken a suite at the hotel last night, and at least three more fabulous homes Bianca had mentioned set in different parts of the world. He lived the high-powered jet setting lifestyle of the world’s business heavyweights. He even flew the world in comfort in his very own executive jet.

And just out there tied to his private jetty floated his sleek glinting white private power boat that could spin her back across the lake in ten minutes—but he was refusing to give the order because he felt the need to kick someone around a bit and she happened to be conveniently there.

Lizzy looked away from him then back again, not at all sure what to do next. ‘You do know you’re being petty,’ she sighed out finally.

‘Green,’ he murmured.

‘Green—what?’ she flicked out, completely thrown by the comment.

‘Your eyes when you’re angry,’ he provided. ‘Most of the time they are a soft placid grey.’

‘They can spit pretty sharp daggers too when I’m cornered,’ she reacted.

‘Let me test that,’ he offered. ‘You have known all along what they were planning.’

It was not a question. ‘No,’ Lizzy insisted. ‘I told you I did not know.’

But even as she said it her insides were creasing guiltily because perhaps she had seen it coming only it had been so much simpler to just block it out.

‘I did not have you down as a liar, Elizabeth,’ he said coolly.

‘I’m not lying!’ Frowning—annoyed with herself as well as with him and this horrible position she’d been put in, ‘I did not see it coming,’ she insisted a second time, ‘but I admit I feel some responsibility because I think I should have done.’

‘Because you knew they were lovers?’

Did he have to put it as calmly as that? Shifting her tense stance, ‘Yes,’ she answered, deciding to be blunt with him since he didn’t seem to possess a single sensitive nerve in his body. ‘For a while, several years ago.’

‘Childhood sweethearts.’ His hard mouth flicked out the semblance of a smile.

A bit more than that, she thought as she pinned her lips together and made no comment at all. Then, because she couldn’t take the probing glint in his eyes, she let out a sigh. ‘You were right about the wealth difference meaning something. He’s never going to be good enough for her you know.’

‘Whereas I hit all the right criteria for a Moreno?’

Lizzy offered a shrug this time—what else could she do? He did hit all the right criteria. He was everything the Morenos expected their beautiful daughter to marry. Matthew wasn’t. Matthew came right out of middle class England. He’d enjoyed the necessary public-school education to give him a great kick-start in life but that was about it. Until this recent financial crisis her family had survived comfortably on its small business income—no more, no less. Matthew was expected to take over the business from their father one day and to marry some nice middle class Englishwoman who would not demand more from him than he was able to provide.

Bianca on the other hand was always going to expect more. She was always going to have what she wanted in life even if it meant providing it herself. Matthew wouldn’t be able to cope with that. His ego would take such a hard knocking he’d never be happy, whereas this man had so much money of his own he wouldn’t give a toss as to how his beautiful wife spent her own money, and his ego would stay firmly intact.

‘She will come back,’ she promised. ‘She just needs time to—sort her head out.’

‘Not her heart?’ The dry distinction made Lizzy wince.

‘I’m sure she loves you,’ she persisted. ‘She’s just not ready to commit to marriage. If you just give her time, then I—’

Black eyebrows with a fascinating silken gloss arched her a curious look. ‘Are you actually standing there, Miss Hadley, suggesting that I should wait for Bianca to sort her head out?’

Well, was she? Lifting her chin, ‘If you love her—yes,’ she insisted.

‘Then you are a romantic fool because it is not going to happen.’ He moved suddenly, straightening away from the desk. ‘There is a wedding arranged for next Saturday morning and I intend to make sure that it goes ahead.’

Without a bride? Lizzy stared at him. ‘You mean—you’re going to find her and drag her back to marry you?’ A silly kind of laugh left her throat at the very image of Bianca being dragged by this man down the church aisle kicking and screaming.

‘No.’ Reaching behind him, his long fingers picked Bianca’s letter up again—this time to fold it with slow, neat precision. ‘I mean to replace her with someone else.’

She was pretty much held in his thrall by now. ‘Just like that?’

‘Just like that.’ He nodded and made her gasp as he ripped the letter into small pieces, then calmly dropped them into the waste-paper basket standing by the desk.

It was such a cold act of dismissal of Bianca and everything she should mean to him that Lizzy began to feel slightly sick.

‘You will have to move quickly to put your life in order, of course, but with my assistance I think it can be achieved in time.’

She dragged her eyes up from the discarded pieces of paper. It took a few seconds for his words to actually sink in— then they did sink in and Lizzy took a jerky step backwards.

‘M-my life is fine as it is.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ he acknowledged. ‘But will it be fine by tomorrow when I inform the authorities that your brother has emptied your company bank account?’

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